Tag Archives: AA

Call me crazy, but I’ve been thinking about other people. Maybe it’s because I’ve been off of vodka since May 26th. You should know I’m really very disciplined.

So I’ve been thinking about Tiger Woods and Arnold Schwarznegger and what they have in common. Which is very little besides buckloads of alimony and endorsements. I’ve also been thinking about old John Edwards and Eliot Spitzer and what they have in common. Almost nothing. And then I started thinking about Silvio Berlusconi.

What does Berlusconi have in common with these other publicly ridiculed philanderers? They’ve all been caught dabbling outside of their miserable marriages. Some were with hookers, others with maids. Some were with the sort of trashy chicks you’d expect to find overboozed at a hunting lodge on the outskirts of Bozeman, MT. But not Signor Berlusconi! Well sure, some of those women were ladies of easy virtue. But more importantly, none of Berlusconi’s women look they belong in Bakersfield. And although their job description might’ve forced them to get down and work on their hands and knees, they weren’t down there scrubbing the floor with Fabuloso. That much I can guarantee.

Berlusconi the corrupt politician, chauvinist, misogynist, and horrific Prime Minister might be guilty of providing inadequate aid to Abruzzo after the earthquakes or for snoozing in whatever you call Italy’s Oval Office while they become the next Greece –but for all of his numerous and horrible faults, none of them include a one time intern named Monica Lewinsky. No, this man did not throw himself upon hired help. Rather, he hired help to throw themselves on him and for that he is a prince among his cohort of failed Lotharios.

Sure, he’s seventy-two and nobody has anything nice to say about him. Nor should they. And yeah, he’s broken all of his own country’s laws. All the more reason he should’ve been caught with two underage toothless Albanian sisters in a gas station bathroom, but he wasn’t.

And worst of all or maybe best, while Tiger’s hair is turning gray, John Edward is “suicidal” about the prospect of jail, Eliot Spitzer has been publicly sentenced to a caricature, and Arnold… well, he’s a little different because that dude honestly does not give a fuck. I’m being totally serious. He doesn’t care about anything. If only he had better taste in women or maybe if his best onscreen performance wasn’t the documentary Pumping Iron then maybe I’d put him in Berlusconi’s league, but he really isn’t. Still, while the rest of these guys are walking around with nothing but their recent castration on their minds, Berlusconi and Arnold are pulling up their trousers, sending someone else the bill and looking for the next one.

Arnold’s got a two movie deal and a house for each of his twenty-seven kids (when they emerge from obscurity/San Bernardino). Berlusconi’s seventy-two and thrusts his arthritic pelvis at every Moroccan nubile as if she might be his last because let’s get real. This dude should be dead already. Bunga bunga, bro.

–The Neapolitan Mastiff

This is Berlusconi’s campaign aid from 2008. Bear the lead-in because this is a gem.

Hugo De Naranja and I have discussed at great length what it means to be a man in the twenty-first century. We even wrote a pilot about it, which was wildly praised and largely ignored. There was a blowfish involved. It was brilliant. Today, with Oscar nominations out and the President’s State of the Union address on its way I ask the tough questions. I ponder the State of American Manhood. I merely ask and I do not answer because I am not the President. I am simply an absentee voter in the lowest tax bracket.

So before we argue about whether Paul Giamatti got snubbed or snarkily comment about Republicans and Democrats sitting side-by-side, let’s just be happy Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie didn’t get nominated.

Okay, now that we’re happy about that lets get back to the tough questions. Be warned: some may involve immense reflection.

If you’re better at navigating the Farmer’s Market than what’s under the hood of your Volkswagen Golf—are you still a man?

If you prefer turkey burgers—are you still a man?

If you’ve ever turned up a Lady Gaga song in the privacy of your own motor vehicle and enjoyed her shrieking “Alejandro!”—are you still a man?

If you’ve ever seen a six-year-old unwrapping a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and pined for your lost youth—are you still a man?

If you wear socks with your loafers—are you still a man?

If you wake up one morning with a Chihuahua snuggled on the pillow next to you—are you still a man?

If you drink vodka masked by cranberry juice—are you still a man?

If you own tweezers—are you still a man?

If you cried at the end of A Farewell to Arms—are you still a man?

If you floss daily—are you still a man?

If you believe, after a long day of doing whatever it is that you do on your long days, that you deserve a ceremonious bubble bath—are you still a man?

If you’ve ever thought how delectable a glass of champagne would taste on a sunny afternoon while your peers hardily indulge in pitchers of watery Mexican beer—are you still a man?

These questions are not dealing with one’s anatomical situation. Rarely has a man, by the wrath of something larger than man itself, been slowly castrated because he knew how to properly iron a shirt. These questions transcend sexuality because we live in an era when all men are equally aware of the gastronomical advantages of free-range chickens.

I ask these questions because now that Larry King is retired, who is left to get to the bottom of this? Who will ask the hard questions, if not me? Anderson Cooper? Fox News? The Burmese Association of Professional Journalists? I think not!